Ophiuchus side story: AC 163, Spring
by musubi.kei
Summary: Once upon a time, in a country that now exists only in legend, a young King catches a glimpse of the future and things are set in motion that will one day change the world...
1. I : Magus

**Ophiuchus Side-Stories:****  
A.C. 163**

**.:I:.**

_Once upon a time, in a country not so different from the one you are from, little one, there lived a King very much like what you might be some day._

_He was handsome, blond, and as arrogant as he was charming. By the time he was sixteen, he had collected notches from every eligible woman at his court, and even some of the ineligible ones, so it was not entirely surprising that the first words out of his perfect princely lips when his advisors told him he was to be wed were…_

"How well-endowed is she?"

"Deutschland currently grosses one hundred and thirty-two thousand universal credits per capita, your majesty, Kaiser Catherina is one of the wealthiest women on earth right now…"

"No, Lucius you nerd," Byron sighed, adding another dab of polish to his prized hunting rifle. "I mean, how well-endowed is she?"

Lucius stammered and turned an interesting shade of strawberry.

The delicate task of informing his majesty of his upcoming marriage had trickled down to the King's sad little librarian through a system of political re-delegation. Possibly, the Chief Ministers and Stewards thought their hot-blooded young sovereign was less likely to shoot the messenger if the messenger was as phenomenally pathetic as Lucius Darlian. He prayed they were right.

"Well?"

"Well I… uh… ah… I don't know, your majesty… none of the data I've been charged with mentions the Kaiser's ah… personal statistics…"

"Oh. Don't worry, I'm sure you can find that out for me soon enough," Byron concluded brightly.

He was being dismissed. Lucius let go of the breath he had not realised he had been holding and scrambled for the door with as much dignity as a nervous small animal could muster escaping from the jaws of certain doom.

The ministers and stewards will not be happy, but over all, Lucius thought it went rather well. No-one lost any ears, for a start. And if they'd expected any more than that from Byron Peacecraft the Third, then they should have brought the matter to him themselves.

"And Lucius,"

The librarian froze, too anxious to be surprised.

"While you're at it, find out why a great nation like Deutschland would want to marry their empress off to little ol' us, won't you?"

…

**A/N**: Placed between chapter 2b and the upcoming chapter 3 of my other fic "**Ophiuchus:** **The Secret Life of Gardenias**" in authoring timeline, but readable in any order of your choice. And yes, chapter 3 to SLG is coming. That's a promise.


	2. II : Papissa

**Ophiuchus Side-Stories:****  
A.C. 163**

**.:II:.**

Not for the first time since meeting Byron Peacecraft, Lucius wondered which of the gods hated him and why.

He had never considered himself a friend to the boorish young King, as often as social circumstances threw them together in school; certainly not enough for him to expect an invitation to serve in Sanq when he graduated from the collegium. Byron was an arrogant brat and bully, like most Royals, but without any of the class. When a prince of the Neo-Lombardian Houses demands use of your homework answers, you are left with the privilege of being recognised for your talents. When Byron Peacecraft holds you up for your homework, you are left feeling distinctly soiled and cheated no matter how much contraband he tries to shove at you. Besides, what true-blooded royalty attends a school common enough to offer scholarships?

Lucius would not have accepted the offer, except there weren't a whole lot of prospects in life for younger sons of minor, impoverished, noblemen and Lucius did not seem to have any. There are much worse jobs for someone like him than Assistant Librarian in the eclectic and largely unused library of Skagen Castle, and there were even moments when Lucius could get over his inherent distaste of Byron enough to be grateful.

This was not one of them.

He squirmed under the scrutiny of the Empress's welcome party. A King's retinue is expected to comprise of Ministers and bodyguards tailed closely by secretaries and personal servants, and _their_ servants, rounded up in the rear by more bodyguards; not pull up at the front step of Schloss Charlottenburg unannounced, packed like five clowns in a sardine can in the backseat of any old car. As a result, no-one on the Deutschland side quite knew what to make of the cherry-red McLauren F1 that did arrive claiming to be the Sanq Kingdom delegation. What sort of politician drives himself to an international diplomatic negotiation in this manner, and what sort of King, for that matter, brings an Assistant Librarian with him?

"Because you know German," Byron explained patiently, days before.

"But Mister Mueller speaks it better than I do," Lucius protested, naming one of the larger stewards who had been rather disgruntled by the King's decision to take Lucius over one of them. "And the Chief Minister, and the Minister of Foreign Affairs… hell, even your personal guard has more German than I do!"

"Really?" Byron seemed genuinely surprised, and equally disinterested, to hear. "Oh well. But you've never been to Deutschland, Lucius my friend. This would be the perfect opportunity to broaden your horizons!"

But Lucius did not want his horizons broadened, he wanted to go back to his desk in the library at Skagen Castle, where he had just sat down to the task of restoring an ancient book on rare birds of Northern Europe, away from the cold and the burning gaze of suspicious Deutsche eyes.

"You really should have brought Lord Trenton, your Majesty," the Chief Minister protested. "He is known here. We could have had this all cleared up by now and not have to suffer this indignation."

"Quit mewing, Branos. What kind of master would I be if I wouldn't let a man take leave to tend to his sick mother?"

Let him? Byron had pretty much booted his Minister of Foreign Affairs out the front gate and told him not to come back until the Gorgonian Lady Trenton saw fit.

"In the least, your Majesty, you could have let him make arrangements for our... trip."

"What's the fun in that?" the young King laughed, which was not particularly surprising to Lucius, who was there when a younger Byron had decided it would be fun to hijack the automated tour on Open Day at the collegium and had served detention for it alongside him because the faculty could not believe Byron capable enough to hack into the AI, although they had no doubt that the Sanqere had been behind it all.

Nor did it surprise him too much to discover, sometime later, that their illustrious leader had somehow managed to slip away at some point between the Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs fainting and the Chief Minister's unrelated hissy fit.

**…**

**_Glossary:_**  
_Sanqere_ -- My invented word for "person from Sanq", derived from _Danskere_, the Danish's own word for "person from Denmark".


	3. III : Imperatrix

**Ophiuchus Side-Stories:****  
A.C. 163**

**.:III:.**

Once upon a time in Berlin, on the most exciting day at Schloss Charlottenburg since Catherina Vera-Stella's Ascension, a dashing young King stumbled across an alcove of flower fairies, each one fairer than the next… At least, that was how he greeted them, and the girls, giggling giddily behind lily-white hands, did not correct him.

"_Fee Damen_," he kissed each one on their delicate fingers, collecting blushes like roses. To the most enchanting maiden, radiant in gold lamé and fine French lace, he offered a pale Memoriam rose in mid-bloom.

"Madam Empress," he approached her on bended knee, gazing deep into her velveteen eyes. For who else could she be, so extravagantly dressed and attended upon by all the rest with such care? "I am often told of the splendours of Schloss Charlottenburg, but I see it is you who make it the most beautiful garden in Europe!"

The girl glowed with obvious pleasure and moved to hide it behind an ornate Oriental Fragrant Wood fan, as appropriate of her pristine Court breeding.

"A pretty speech. Pity fräulein knows no English."

The speaker, in contrast, was a sober woman who looked no younger than twenty-two and had hitherto escaped most of the group's attention by lounging behind a shady tree with what looked to be an advanced fencing manual. Unlike the others in their whimsical dresses, she wore suede pants and shiny boots like a uniform and was not the least bit shy about addressing him or, the king suspected, very much else. A deep rosy-russet coat hung over her arm, the colour, if memory served, of Catherina Vera-Stella's personal Guard.

He responded to her with a bow that might have been mocking and a wide, charming, grin. "Then, would you be kind enough to translate?"

The woman smirked. "Perhaps when fräulein is fifteen," she answered glibly. Byron paused. The girl had seemed that magical indeterminate age between sixteen and twenty that Court ladies well into their thirties suffered extensive daily regimes to affect. There was also only one child of note in known residence at Kaiser Catherina's Court. Neither of these revelations bode well for him.

"Meanwhile," the woman continued, "I will make someone bring you back to your friends. They will notice and worry you are gone once they have… found their head."

Something twitched in the corner of his smile. "I hope that is just an expression, Guardswoman."

"Of course, _Herr_ Peacecraft." She said, which could have just as easily meant 'of course you'd hope that' as 'of course we haven't'. It was hard to tell with the Deutsche.

The king chuckled it off, but decided to take his leave of the bower, all the same. Foolish as he appeared, there were powerful rumours surrounding the brutal efficiency of the regiment affectionately known in certain circles as the _Blutigesgarde_ and Byron did not wish to test them.

He stole a second kiss from the golden Princess' fingertips instead, as much for the pure joy of it as the thinly veiled ire of her protectoress, and departed with a roguish plea for forgiveness and secrecy in badly mutilated German.

"_Why did you chase him off_, _Katya*_?" The girl dropped her fan and stomped crossly as soon as the foreign king was out of sight. "_I liked him*_!"

"_It's best that you stay away from the Sanqere_. _They are dangerous and I don't yet know what they're after_*."

The girl sneered. "_You're just jealous I'm twelve and can get more boys than you_*."

Katya, Catherina Vera-Stella Kaiser von Deutschland, folded her arms and turned a cool eye on her younger half-sister. "_Time for you to be back at your lessons, I think, Lady Khushrenada_*."

Melusina Prinzessin Khushrenada shrieked through gritted teeth, which did nothing to deter her ladies from rushing to obey the older woman's suggestion. As important and well-loved as she was, Katya's word, particularly over her affairs, was law.

"_You're such a spoilsport, Kaiser Catherina_,*" she declared with a toss of her perfect porcelain head as she stormed off back towards the palace, "_No wonder no-one likes you_*!"

"_Perhaps that's true, Lucy_*," the Emperor of Deutschland replied quietly. "_But we do not become Kings and Emperors in order to be liked_*."

But it did not take the sting out of her sister's words, either.

**…**

*_dialogue_ _in German_

**_Glossary:_**  
_Fee Damen_ -- German. Literally "Fairy" and "Ladies".  
_Blutigesgarde_ -- German. Literally "Bloody Guard"

**A/N:**  
Catherina insists on being Emperor instead of Empress.  
**Catherina Vera-Stella Kaiser von Deutschland** is a full name as well as title, literally _Catherina Vera-Stella Emperor of Deutschland_, just as **Melusina Prinzessin Khushrenada** is _Melusina Princess Khushrenada_. The title portion is part of their names.


	4. IV : Imperator

**Ophiuchus Side-Stories:****  
****A.C. 163**

**.:IV:.**

Schloss Charlottenburg was not unlike other bastions of power from the Great Europa Government era, ancient and opulent, built and adorned in materials that would today be considered impractical, and polished, restored and maintained to its most pristine state in the most pain-staking ways. There were, however, surprising little deviations in its traditions.

Motion-sensing lights, for example, and full-panelled digital screens discreetly recessed into strategic window frames, cycling between fantastical displays of Slavic art and to-the-minute news updates. A tall open gallery leading into the business parts of the palace featured photo portraits of every minister and official of the empire for two regimes, the newer below the older, and a small discreet plaque on the bottom of each frame indicating name, position, and where applicable, their fate. Byron Peacecraft counted thirty-seven _im Exil_ and twenty-six _Märtyrer für Friedrich XI_ at a glance and noted in good cheer to Lucius Darlian, his friend and confidante, the lack of Assistant Librarians.

Lucius was less than charmed. The bare echoing floors made him feel strangely exposed, and every portrait was another pair of haunting and haunted eyes silently accusing him of the luck of serving a different master. For all his reckless caprice, Byron Peacecraft the Third has yet to actually murder anyone. Nor was he alone in his discomfort, the Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs kept his eyes firmly fixed on the tips of his shoes and Chief Minister Branos had practically turned green. Even their escort, the two Sanqere bodyguards the ministers finally managed to bundle into the car with Byron and the four _Imperium Marsch_ guardsmen with the puff-chested palace steward, seemed somewhat cowed marching beneath them.

"Where are the pictures of my wife-to-be?" Byron boomed in a hearty tourist voice.

It took a moment for Lucius to realise he was being spoken to, but before he could think to make the inquiry, he was spared the humiliation of exercising his poor German by a gruffer, older voice that replied with hardly any accent at all. "The Kaiser is not fond of pictures."

"Oh? Could have fooled me," the young king replied, pausing casually before the image of an Ottis Brutwurst, former Captain of the Imperial March, currently 'in exile'.

A gaunt man in his thirties, hitherto unnoticed, had somehow replaced their previous guides. The delegation bodyguards fumbled for their weapons in bewilderment. The Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs even let slip a rather embarrassing squeak. Of their party, only Byron was unfazed. The man stood before him in military immaculacy, his natural colours fading against the vivid rust-blood red of his uniform, and offered him no royal courtesies.

"Indeed, Herr Peacecraft." he said.

Lord Branos blustered and glowed purple where his compatriots blenched. Of all the indignities he has suffered at the hands of Byron and the Deutsche today, this was by far the worst to his mind. A man's standing is tied irrevocably to that of his master's. How dare this simple _redcap_ reduce his sovereign king to an ignoble "_mister_"? The Chief Minister snarled, as much from the slight as the uncomfortable chill the stoic servant sent down his spine.

"We are most honoured guests in this House and you _will_ properly address us as lords of a recognised Kingdom!"

Byron merely raised a bemused eyebrow.

"However barbaric and beggarly?" he let slip a sideways smile. "I am touched, Branos, especially considering what your ilk think of me."

The Chief Minister palled. "Well, that is… your majesty, I… I mean… this… I …"

"Let it lie, Branos," Byron clapped a firm hand on his shoulder, his laugh grating, though not unkind, "it's not worth saving.

"I apologise," he turned fluidly towards their patient observer with a generous grin, "it seems it is past my courtiers' feeding time, so pray lead on, _Blutigesgarde_, I'm sure we'll all appreciate some fine beds, wine and food."

This did not warm the empress' ninja up as Byron had hoped, although he did loiter just a moment longer than he absolutely had to before shutting the Sanqere in their guest suite.

"_Blutigesgarde_ is a vicious slur," he said quietly to Byron at the threshold of the turquoise themed sitting room. "It would be kind of you not to repeat it."

"I see," the King of Sanq Kingdom replied. "What does your Empress call you?"

"By our names, Herr Peacecraft." Weridge tipped his head in the slightest of bows as he pulled the suite doors close. "Good night."

…

**_Glossary:_**  
_im Exil_ - German. In Exile, an age-old way of saying they got "disposed of".  
_Märtyrer für Friedrich XI _- German. Martyred for Friedrich XI, a politesse way of saying executed by F-XI. These shall be worked into the later text.


	5. V : Antistes

**Ophiuchus Side-Stories:****  
****A.C. 163**

**.:V:.**

There was something ineffable about a woman whose first step as monarch was to install a not-so-secret secret police force, then neglect to name them. Some sort of hapless feminine indecision, perhaps, in keeping with the eclectic furnishings of her house.

The room Byron shared with Lucius —and not the other way around because Byron had waited for his men to settle in then ordered the Chief Minister, with whom Lucius was going to share a room, to switch places with him— was a mix-up of Baroque, Gothic and Post-Impressionism in spring greens and rose-petal pink. The common sitting room was steamrollered in a classic dusky turquoise then stocked with a random jumble of a rickety old rocking chair, a minimalist couch, some pieces of a Super Post-Modernist transparent living room set with holographic components, and stores of sculpture from various ages of antiquity clearly being used for display and counter space. In the heart of the room was a reproduction of the classic Venus de Milo, reimagined with six arms in various motions and materials that provided niche surfaces to satisfy its intention as some sort of coffee table. The results spoke of something fractured and inconstant, deliriously monstrous, to Lucius, though a thing of impeccable beauty in its parts.

Byron scoffed and called him a philistine. But then, he had not bothered to learn the first thing about his potential match.

The rule of the Heinrichs, from which Catherina Vera-Stella was directly descent, is a prosperous, if troubled, one. 'Troubled' is too polite a word for the atrocities borne beneath their throne and crown. Theirs was a bloodline that ran deep into antiquity and more inbred than most. Catherina's own mother was consort, aunt and half-sister to her father, Friedrich the Eleventh, the Conqueror (some say the Butcher), whose victories fed the Imperial coffers while he unified the whole of Eastern Europe. Although clearly a world Super-Power, the Deutscheland Empire under Friedrich XI sequestered itself from the world theatre until his sudden, silent, death flung the doors of the Empire open and thrust his sole legitimate heir onto a complex centre stage for which she seemed ill-prepared.

For most parts of her life, Catherina Vera-Stella was cloistered in Breman and emerged only for propriety's sake on special occasions _während maskiert_. As Emperor of Deutscheland, little had changed save her move to Berlin. Residents of her court characterised her reign as the fumblings of a child of privilege playing house in her father's office, prone to excess, often blinded by the whimsies of youth and bored by the duties of the crown while the Empire crumbled, unnoticed, around her. On the other hand, one had to admit, something quite similar was often surmised of Byron Peacecraft the Third. It would not be a sane match, anyone would see that, but what choices do the only two apples left in the bottom of the barrel have?

Byron shrugged it off with his usual blithe. "You know me, Lucius, do I seem like the kind of man to wed? We're just here to see what the scam is about, relax," which only wound the Assistant Librarian up tighter.

"You are not a man, your majesty, you are a king, King of the Sanq Kingdom, with responsibilities to your title and your people and their continuous good name and well-being…" … and a tittering tirade at the end of which Byron regarded the other man with the mildness usually affected by those who have completely lost the thread of conversation and said, almost hurt,

"A king is a kind of man."

**…**

**_Glossary:_**  
_während maskiert_ - German. Lit "while being masked"


	6. VI : Amantes

**Ophiuchus Side-Stories:  
A.C. 163**

**.:V.V:.**

_"That is not Le Petit Prince," a little golden head complained between the covers._

_"No," his aunt agreed, "this story's better."  
_

_"It's bo~ring~" the little boy knelt up in pouting. "Tell a different one~" and with a sly look and a sneaky whisper, "Something that's got blood in it!"_

_"O…kay…" the aunt raised a concerned eyebrow, "after a while, everybody died, _bloodily_. The end."_

_"Aaww~!" He started to sulk and she started, awkwardly, to stand up and leave. This was not the sort of thing she was expecting when she'd offered to tuck him in… and she thought she was being coolly inappropriate by switching out his bedtime literature for scandalous side-history._

_"Wait, wait! Don't go, Aunt Lucy," he pleaded and scrambled back under the covers as fast as he could, "tell something about the Golden Column-rina."_

_"The gold… wha-? Where did you hear that?"_

_"I think it's the little ballerina standing on a column… Lez says she was the best-est superhero there ever was, and it's all true, and you used to tell it to him…"_

_Aunt Lucy sat back down, silent with fascination as the little prince gushed desperately, trying to explain himself. "One time, she met this guy who was going to kill her, and she made him her sidekick. This other time, she met an evil emperor, and she cut off his head, and…" he stopped, realising too late his slip. She'd already shown her feelings on narrating tales of gratuitous violence once._

_"It doesn't have to be a violent story," he added hastily._

_Understanding dawned. "…OH, the Golden Colum_bina_… that's a kind of mask, Flusenlöwe."_

_Well, that's interesting. She was going to need to have a talk with her son about what was appropriate conversation with his much-younger cousin._

**…**

**.:VI:.**

On the streets of Berlin, a curious folktale had taken hold.

It was told and passed on in hushed tones like a coveted secret, and stoutly denied as mere old wives' tales when details were pursued. The people claim it was very old, perhaps from the times of Great Europa, but no-one spoke of it until some four years ago. It took Byron Peacecraft most of an afternoon and all of his charm and several decanters of good wine smuggled from the empress' guest chambers to beg off a telling from a pair of veteran fruit peddlers as wrinkled as their fruit camped on the street corner at the end of the palace block. It's not a story told to foreigners, the old women began, they wouldn't understand.

**VI-I**

Once upon a time, a king had a daughter he could not stand to see, so he made her a pretty columbina of gold and of silver, for she was a princess after all, and sent her away. Word of the princess reached the ears of _Frau Perchta_, who became curious to see what was so terrible to see. So Frau Perchta went to where the princess was and came through the door, "WHOOOSH!" and knew the princess by her father's gold and silver mask. "WHOOSH!" Frau Perchta went, "Little girl, take off your mask, so I can see what's too terrible to see,"

But the little princess said, "My father put this mask on me, only my father may take it off from me," which was a good and pious response.

"WHOOOSH!" Frau Perchta flew around the house, "Little girl, take off your mask, I will give you silver and gold if you will give the mask to me," for Frau Perchta had fallen in love with the gold and silver mask and wanted it for herself.

But the little princess said, "My father put this mask on me, only my father may take it off from me," which was a good and pious response.

"WHOOWHOOOSH!" Frau Perchta flew around the house and blew the North Wind on the princess' face, causing frost patterns and ice crystals to form on the columbina made of gold and of silver, which only made it more beautiful. "Little girl! Give me the mask, or surely your face shall freeze and break!"

But the little princess did not flinch, even though her lips were blue and her lashes were heavy and white with snow. "My father put this mask on me, only my father may take it off from me," she said.

Now Frau Perchta grew ashamed, This is a good little girl, she thought to herself, I shall ask her father for the mask instead. So Frau Perchta left a silver coin in each of the princess' shoes, one for her virtue and one for being rude, and took herself off to the king's house, where the king was sitting down to a supper of borscht and marrow.

"WHOOSH!" went Frau Perchta, through the big doors, "WHOOWHOOOSH!" went Frau Perchta, through the feast hall, and off popped the king's head and out came his guts, for this being Epiphany, Frau Perchta's Feast Day, only dumplings and herrings were allowed.

And so, Frau Perchta lost her chance at the Golden Columbina and the princess was stuck with it forever, the end.

"This is a story you tell your children?" Lucius asked, slack-jawed and aghast.

"Pah, meh, the grandbabies," the more cosmopolitan of the pair shrugged in heavily accented reply, complete with a wicked, gap-toothed grin. "Our children are made of sterner stuff."

**VI-II**

Indeed, in the further reaches of the city where only locals had cause to go, a different story was told over beer and roast: how once there was a robber king who sold his daughter to the Devil because she reminded him of her mother, only, the Devil felt sorry for the baby and instead of roasting her in the fire for his supper, raised her as his own. How the foolish man, passing through the Devil's glen, saw the Devil's daughter _der Columbina, _and, forgetting what he had done with his own child many years ago, brought her back to his den and thought to wed her; and how enamored he was with her wit and grace that he forgot she was the Devil's daughter and a mad, wild, thing, and showed her his dinner, a bloody haunch of lamb roasting in the fire, and "_FLATSCH!_" he was watching her from the floor, a mad, wild, thing, tearing into his belly and devouring his black innards! And so sweet to her was the taste of a man's stomach that she roamed the hills for more, forever more,

The one-eyed story-teller stared intently at the pale foreign _schwein_. The skinny one looked like he might throw up, which was always a good show to see. His companion, the nobleman, leaned in, a twinkle of mischief in his ice-blue eyes.

"Where are these hills?"

The Deutscheman took great pleasure in waving expensively, pulling his voice into a devilish snarl; this was the best part that always got the tourists, "Why, all around you, _herr Fremde_, these old hills are Berlin!"

"Well done, man!" Byron burst into a deep and hearty laugh, stunning his host for a moment before he too joined in.

"Good stomach on your friend, ey?" he bellowed, punching the green-gilled skinny one in the arm. Lucius hurled.

**VI-III**

The oldest of this new mythology was also the newest, told as _der Ritt von der Maskiert Jagd _in episodic meetings of capricious order; a variant, obviously, of the more traditional _Wild Hunt_. The fat merchant who starves his servants is turned into a boar and slain, his carcass thrown on a fire and given to his household. The pettyman who lowers his eyes from the Head of the Hunt is sent home, and the baker who dares to meet her gaze is rewarded in silver coin as heavy as his conscience was clear, but the man who thinks to best her and fails, he is fed to her riders, who are demons and beasts as well as men.

"Thish is all 'rong," Lucius Darlian complained, slightly flushed and impaired on the local draft. "_La Columbina _is da Tricky Slave of _Commedia dell'arte_, what _gonzo _puts her at the head of _der Wildes Heer_? They… hic, won't ev'n shpeek te same... language… hic…"

A strong hand shoved a tankard of water at him and waved for the company to resume their narrative, avoiding general disgruntlement only by virtue of no-one else quite understanding what the Assistant Librarian was babbling. This archaic academic insight was the true reason, among others, Byron had brought Lucius with him.

"What if the man should win?" he asked the ragtag circle. They were common citizens, store clerks and labourers, accountants and engineers, a man from the Imperial March, and the barkeep of the establishment.

"He is given a horse and a mask and a place in the Hunt, of course," was the impatient retort, for this was an old story that everyone knows.

"She ish wife of the people ah...rnd mistress to _der Diavolo_," Lucius continued grumbling into his cup in a massacre of slurred English, Italian and a sheepish smattering of German, "vhere's she learn'ng t' ride an' hunt?"

The Deutsche, however, told her as a cruel and ethereal White Lady holding the reins of a monstrous undead host decked out in the Devil's own colours, _"in black and in red"_, as the girl who worked at the florist's put it, _"wearing masks of fire and shadow, and her own mask a more terrible thing of cold, crafted from the eyes of the sun and the tears of the moon"_, terrible, but in her own ineffable faerie way, fair.

"And what does she hunt?" Byron pressed with a smile brimming of intrigue and eyes full of stars.

"Wimmmen… hunt grrrlzz w' dun do dey's chores…" Byron patted his friend indulgently on the shoulder, pulled his cap over Lucius' eyes, and was answered by a drunken snorting snore.

"_Weiß nicht_," the flower girl shrugged, this was not the point of the story, for her.

"Everything," an old man dozing by the fireplace weighed in, "some say she chase man who stole her face. Is why she wear mask."

Baited silence fell on the group, solemn, shuttered expressions passed around, unnoticed by Byron, who was lost in his own thoughts.

"_Ja_," the barkeep hailed after the moment, with a slam of an empty tankard and a sudden mad show of teeth thrust into that of the incognito Sanqere King, "Maybe she hunts _YOU!_"

A woman, perhaps a man, no-one thought to look, shrieked behind them. Byron led the roar of laughter and, matching the barkeep's wide wolfish grin, bought everyone another drink.

**...**

_**Glossary:**__**  
**__Flusenlöwe –_German. Lit. "Fluff Lion", a cute petname cos he's all golden curls.  
_Frau Perchta__–_A traditional figure of German folklore, she visits children and young servants at the beginning/end of the year to give them a silver coin if they've been good and done their spinning, and slit their bellies and fill them with straw if they haven't. And also if anyone eats anything but herrings and dumplings (or sometimes, fish and gruel) on her Feast Day.  
_Flastch –_German. The sound something wet and juicy, like a fish, makes when it hits the floor.  
_Fremde –_German. Lit. "stranger"  
_der Ritt von der Maskiert Jagd –_German. Lit "The Ride of the Masked Hunt"  
_der Wildes Heer –_German. Lit "Wild Host(Army)", a German variant name of the Wild Hunt. I picked this variant to emphasise a group of hunters, vs the more common German tellings that involve only a lone hunter.  
_Weiß nicht –_German. "(I) don't know".

**A/N:** To recap, because the main story is being re-written, "Lez" is young Milliard's Treize. I've tried to do the "folktales" in appropriate language. Let me know what you think?


	7. VII : Currus

**Ophiuchus Side-Stories:  
A.C. 163**

**.:VII:.**

There had been a man by the name of Byron Fawe, the way the Sanqere told it, mercenary Captain of the legendary warship Peacecraft who founded his monarchy on the declaration "Screw this, I'm going home to see my new-born son", or something to that effect.

The actual exchange might have gone more like this:  
_"Where the f—are you? You promised you'd be home yesterday!"  
__"Can't we do this later, sugarplum? This is a really bad time…"  
__"Don't you 'sugarplum' 'bad time' me… aarrrrggghhhh!"  
__"I know this contract's run a bit long, but we've almost got them on the run and there's a nice bonus in it if we deliver the Emir…"  
__"I don't CARE! Your son is coming right NOW and he isn't waiting for you to be done arsing around with your friends!"  
__"Millie, we've… oh my god… are you… on the birthing table?... Is that its head?"  
__"AIIYYYEEEEE! I'm gonna kill you, Byron Fawe!"  
_(She doesn't, but will continue to threaten this throughout the rest of their lives, their grandson confides in his 'Origins of Our Countries' class. He got an F, being as History was not some silly handful of anecdotal stories but an academic study that was much more serious, but it wasn't until the lecturer insulted his people that the boy jumped up and beat him down in the halls in plain sight of all.)

That was the first time people truly noticed Byron Peacecraft the Third. Until then, most of his peers had thought him a merchant's son of some sort, with means enough to make pretensions at being of a better stock, but neither the head nor ambition to go there. Afterwards, he was an animal, a madman with a hair trigger, an unruly force to fear and be reckoned with, even though he was never again seen laying a fighting hand on anyone. Amorously though, he could hardly seem to keep those hands to himself.

Not that the ladies seemed to mind, a touch of passion can be very attractive in a man. Deutsche girls, those of them foolhardy enough to engage their Kaiser's intended, especially enjoyed his reckless spontaneity. Today, he is showing off his vitality and horsemanship by wrestling down a famously vicious stallion named _Teufelshund_ in the Imperial stable yard. There were thirty kisses on the line, and a sizable throng of spectators had formed in the twenty minutes since he'd started, including three of the five members of the Sanqere retinue. Lucius was pretty sure that a pot had started somewhere on the other side of the corral, with Byron favoured to lose.

"Is not if he loses, is when," a flushed middle-aged lady of the court explained at his elbow, and offered him six-one odds on the next minute.

"What will he do if he wins?" a younger woman wearing the distinctive crimson brown coat of the Emperor's unnamed personal guard asked. Like her colleague from their first night, she spoke English with confident accuracy and scarcely any accent.

"He'll likely be all day collecting his bounty," Lucius replied sourly without a thought. Today was supposed to be spent in perusal of his dossier on Deutsche customs and culture, Byron had promised. What sadist would make him do all that work if they had no interest in his results?

Smythe, the Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs, groaned quietly. What idiot blabs about his king's affairs to everyone who asks? And for that matter, what idiot king brings an idiot like that to any subject of political delicacy?

One who spends the time waiting for an audience with his bloodthirsty betrothed looking up every skirt in her court, of course.

If their king had enough brainpower to recognise the enormity of their situation and the international repercussions it represents, he chose instead to squander it flirting with every woman who came to gawk at the delegation. Byron called it reconnaissance, with a roguish grin. If the Deutsche was to become his people, he said, twisting his ministers' words back on them, would it not be within his responsibilities to know and understand them? Except, of course, if the proposed marriage alliance was to go through, the Sanqere would more probably become Deutsche and he would become part of their people, not the other way around; not to mention the empress' apparent lack of interest in him, herself.

This did not come in as big a shock to the Vice Minister as it did the hapless Mr Darlian. Marriages between Royalty are matters of the state, political matches arranged by their politicians and reigning relatives, rarely are the couples themselves involved at all. It did bother him that the Chief Minister did not seem to trust his abilities and would rather wait to video-conference the Minister of Foreign Affairs than allow him to help, but there was little he could do about that without the king's support, and Byron's attentions, it would appear, could not be further from these current affairs.

"His Majesty would be pleased to attend to whatever Her Imperial Majesty requires at her pleasure," he cut in before Lucius could inflict any more damage. The woman cast him a fleeting look before turning her steely blue eyes back to the spectacle that was Byron versus the Kaiser's prize horse. The man was limping in wary circles, considerably scruffier than he was when the day began and somewhat worn down to the trained eye. The latter, however, seemed just as vicious and spirited as it did before.

A short distance behind her, in the shadow of the palace, stood a small complement of eight or nine androgynous men and women dressed in identical russet-red coats, arranged in casual repose around a fully ball-gowned figure resplendent in gold and palpable regal authority. Smythe could not help but shield his eyes and stare, and as he watched, too far away to truly make out the empress' face, she moved a hand to her eyes and covered the top half of her face with an object of unnatural shine, like a mask of golden mirrors, or something more extravagant. This appeared to be a signal of sorts, although the forerunning guardswoman had had her eyes fixed firmly forward on the devilish horse. Her bootheels clicked in crisp report as she turned to the Sanqere men.

"Tell Herr Peacecraft to be careful, Advisor," a sardonic smile tugged lightly on the corner of her thin, militant, lips, "the Kaiser has no use for broken things." leaving them to wonder if she'd meant their king or the horse.

**…**

**A/N:** _Teufelshund_ - allegedly a Bavarian local legend, some kind of hell-hound.


	8. VIII : Justitia

**Ophiuchus Side-Stories:  
A.C. 163**

**.:VIII:.**

She made sure to move briskly and only in the dark of the moon, when gathering clouds hid her glowing face. Her own face she covered with shadows and a warm blue scarf drawn up around her nose in a sensible woollen coat. Two things always made her extra wary on these midnight jaunts: the cold, and Dennis Weridge.

The first was obvious, there are only so many times one can catch a cold sleeping in the warmest bed in the city before people start asking questions, not to mention all the dastardly inconveniences that came with being sick. It was one thing for her to traipse about in boots and pants like some unkempt squire child, but quite beyond the edge of sufferance for good little empresses to be burgling their own palaces. (A good empress, on the other hand, did it regularly; someone has to keep an eye on things.)

The latter championed an objection to her romping through the sleeping grounds alone, or anywhere for that matter, especially considering what'd happened to her father. There were certain merits to the argument, but then, Dennis Weridge objected to a great number of things including, but not limited to, Pagan, devil horses, and beetroots. Some of those are bound to come out sounding reasonable.

Catherina Vera-Stella, Emperor of Deutscheland, threw herself into the meadow fence and, balancing off it on her pelvis and the palm of her hand, tutted softly behind her teeth across the monochrome field. Three times in rapid succession, a pause, then twice again and two sugar lumps on the top of the fence. The night broke away to greet her in an equestrian cut-out framed in wreaths of steaming breath. "_Wie geht's, Liebhaber_?" She crooned into its ear as it nudged and snuffled her in the chest.

Teufelshund was a parting present from a man named Hawthorne who could find no-one else mad or brave enough to ride the creature for his circus. That was the summer she ran away, right after the initial kerfuffle that came with her ascension to the throne. Hawthorne had often bragged about his family's history serving and entertaining royalty as far back as the days of Great Europa. Some nights, she wondered what he would have thought should he ever learn that his "bonny-haired pony-girl", as he used to call her, was in fact a full-fledged monarch of the Old Blood.

_"Chin up, back locked,"_ she imagined him saying, _"grip with your toes… your toes, mon cheri, not your soles, you look like an unfortunate octopus caught in an alien tractor beam!... Good, not perfect… now, six more laps of perfection!"_ In the wane moonlight, a lone rider kicked off her boots, rose to her feet on the devil horse's back, ramrod straight, and let her nondescript grey coat unfurl into wings. Angel or demon, the difference is immaterial. She soared across the sea of grass on blackened horseshoes that barely grazed the earth, the night spirits howling through her hair, and only when she reached the far end of the palace estates, where the fence ends and forests begin, did she dare to let ring her girlish laughter, for a moment, before her fleet-hooved companion tossed his dark head high and demanded a more challenging routine.

The ladies of the court have taken to concocting some rather colourful stories around them. The current tale in fashion paints her as the Devil's Bride and the horse as the Devil's watchman, her chaperone. At times they added that, to preserve her purity, the empress' heart had been hollowed out of her body and enchanted as a tick hidden in Teufelshund's ear. Naturally, whosoever successfully tames the beast, they sweetly confided in their troubadours, shall free Catherina of her curse, and win her hand and the empire by extension; of course, none of the men who attempted this ever succeeded. Every modicum of interest Catherina lacked in those shenanigans was made up for by the resounding attentions of the fawning, swooning, fainting women she found herself inevitably shackled to through birth and politics, and even the men. It was a good betting sport, and once she got her men set up on the ground, it was rather an ironic way of recouping some of the costs incurred from maintaining the whole posturing and cumbrous lot; which brought to mind one very befuddling and tenacious Byron Peacecraft III.

By all accounts from her gossipy court, he is an oafish boy thrust upon such position and responsibilities as he has been unable to grasp. He is an avid hunter, a jolly drunk, and a diligent lover, charming, though lacking in the quintessential sophistications. Well-meaning, if crass, but ultimately inconsequential, reported Weridge, whom she had sent to dog his steps. Slippery, Pagan warned with a little smile concealed behind a gold-rimmed teacup, reminding her that there were reasons as to how certain men (and women) stay alive despite their apparent inadequacies.

She wavered, pondering which of his manners were true and which were ruse, and to what end? He is everything the empire needs, her ministers assure her, a resilient warrior and ambitious conqueror, just like her father, the great Friedrich IX.

Well, she's already killed one, Catherina thought.

**…**

**GLOSSARY:**  
_Wie geht's, Liebhaber_- German. "What's up, Lover"


	9. IX : Eremita

**Ophiuchus Side-Stories:  
A.C. 163**

**.:IX:.**

"What is your man doing?" A hunched and cowled man hissed at his co-conspirator via a public access video phone. "The boy's getting bored, at this rate we'll be back without even seeing the Kaiser!"

"Keep your voice down, Branos, do you want to be caught? It's your job to keep Byron on track, and from what I'm hearing, you haven't exactly been a vision of conscientiousness yourself!" The way the man on the third-rate video screen said his name made it sound like a synonym for 'idiot'. Branos growled under his breath. If it weren't for the fact that Trenton was the man who'd brokered their deal…

"I can't do everything on my own," he whinged. Frankly, his plan had always been that he wouldn't have to do anything besides marry Byron Peacecraft off before he or his bride prospective change their minds, perfectly straight-laced and above board, and blameless when marital bliss or some sort cause their hedonistic king to abandon his country wholly to the faithful Chief Minister, long-suffering ol' Branos; certainly in no way involved should the notorious couple scandalously murder themselves. The Deutsche consider the latter the better outcome, something Branos would have been happier not knowing. They'd patted him on the knee and chuckled in that uncomfortable reassuring way that made him start to think that perhaps the whole country is as mad and bloodthirsty as their infamous monarchs. This was stuff Trenton was meant to be dealing with, not him!

"Don't you think I want to be there?" The Minister of Foreign Affairs snapped. If he didn't need someone there on the ground, he would have cut Branos out of the deal by now, permanently. The man made his brains bleed with self-important incompetence. Sadly this was the same thing that kept him from realising that in his position, he didn't need to resort to any of this for the tiny bit of power he desired. Anyone could see that all the Chief Minister needed to do was allow Byron to indulge in his vices and stop demanding that he act like a king. Things could be that much happier, except that was not enough for what Trenton wanted. "Mother's clinging to me like a limpet, I can't get away!"

"Just be rid of her and get on with it; I need you here!"

"You are not suggesting I kill her, Branos," came the angry hiss, "that's my mother!" Although the old lady had done little else in his life besides hold him back and plague him incessantly for his few insignificant shortcomings: a man of his age and stature does not need to tidy his own room, damnit! The Deutsche have promised him land, riches and a title, a proper title all to his own, not in the keeping of some gorgonian and hale guardian —Sod being Lord Trenton of Sanq Kingdom, he was going to be a Baronet of Deutscheland, the strongest, wealthiest nation this side of the world— all in return for ridding them of the girl Catherina Vera-Stella. He didn't even have to do anything, really, the Deutsche were pleased enough with the prospect of marrying her off to their Byron and letting nature, or rather their own bloody natures, take its course. Either he will finally have found them a man foolhardy and commanding enough to control their empress without taking over the empire, or the pair will tear each other apart at their first spat, and Byron was certainly not the kind to go down without a good fight. Whether he succeeds in disposing of the Kaiser of Deutscheland or just in affording someone else the clean opportunity to do so, his Deutsche employers seemed satisfied and that was good enough for his Lordship Sir Trenton, Bart.

It might have benefitted him to know that the Deutsche have never had Baronets, traditionally electing, instead, to execute those of their peerage who have for one reason or another failed to measure up. This was the sort of academic trivialities left to his Vice Minister, not any of his concern at all.

In the bowels of Schloss Charlottenburg, a similar discussion took place in German, only with more cohesive co-operation, less paranoia, and a secret audience. Had they more sense than sense of superior entitlement they would have thought to sweep the room for bugs. Not that they would have found any, Dennis was confident of this, still, they could have tried. It always daunts him to be dismissed so lightly.

The denizens of the palace were chilled by Pagan and wary of Marlyne, it was the calculative way the former took in everything around him and the knowledge that the latter had the Kaiser's ear. Him, they just smile at and ignore. It was the result of growing up his whole life here at court, he was sure. The servants and peerage are used to passing him in the hallways, too young, too average, too unimportant, to pay much care to regardless of the uniforms he wore. Dennis Weridge was just that kind of presence.

But he did have Catherina's ear, as good as everyone else in the brown-red uniform he proudly put on. And he was sneaky and watchful, in no way less than the mystery man Pagan, only more loyal. One day, he shall prove this. Today was better spent on plans to keep Catherina Vera-Stella alive with her political dignity intact.

"I could take him," she said lightly, as if choosing a menu for tea, contemplating a surveillance image of Byron Peacecraft the Third strolling nonchalantly through rows of ministers' portraits in Patriots' Gallery, or Hangman's Row, as she cheerfully insisted on referring to it.

"Don't be foolish, Katya, he's twice the size of you and not exactly known for delicacy," which she seemed determined to take as a personal challenge. It was ironic and mildly disturbing how much of the job was saving her from herself, considering all the plotting that was already constantly being done against her.

It wasn't that she was bad at listening, Marlyne'd always thought, it's just that she listens too hard to what you were really saying and not enough to what you wanted her to think you said. Making her mind up for herself did not help either, that tended to make a lot of people unhappy and words like 'wilful' and 'profligate' get thrown around. Marlyne had to look most of those up and even then she couldn't quite understand. It was a lot more hard work to do what Catherina did than what they expected her to do, but also because she was pretty sure, in her common peasant way, people had Kaisers so they could be told what to do, not the other way around.

"Politicians aren't people," Pagan said with a little smile, which didn't clear anything up because although she had been earning her own way in the world for more than half her life and had a front row seat (and a RMS-141E XEKU Enforcer sniper rifle) at her country's most recent secret midnight coup, she had only been thirteen. At eighteen, with what felt like a lifetime at Court behind her, she was starting to wonder how she could ever have thought otherwise.

Politicians aren't people. They were sometimes shades _of_ people, but mostly they were twisted up chimeras of Want and Fear and Vanity dressed up to resemble people. People was what happened in the streets, in the gutters, where men, women and children huddled together under a blanket and shouted senselessly at the dark with stabbing fistfuls of bravado to be allowed to _be_, even though they most likely have no idea what they really mean; which is what Catherina's way of listening was _for_.

In another lifetime, eighteen years later, in fact, on completing a particularly vicious tirade over the repulsive vileness of politicians, her mistress will chuckle softly in the way she picks up in another decade or so, the one that said with upturned palms, 'well played, Universe, you got me', and with her head bowed and slightly cocked, gently remind her longest-serving handmaiden: "Marlyne, dearest, I'm a politician too."

**…**

**A/N: **Baronet is thought to be defined traditionally as "nobility who have for whatever reason lost their right of summons to Parliament". Conventionally, the rank was given to richjobs buying their ways into Nobility in exchange for filling the royal coffers. Bit of a scam, if you ask me. **  
**Marlyne is the name Frozen Teardrop gives for Relena's adoptive mother._  
_


	10. X : Rota Fortunae

**Ophiuchus Side-Stories:  
A.C. 163**

**.:X:.**

The messenger neither coughed nor bowed, merely stood quietly in the partly opened door until everyone in the room stopped to notice him. Flawlessly obsequious despite having shown no actual inclination towards the helpful servitude he exuded, it was hard to object to a man like that. One should never trust them.

There was a timeless aesthetic in his lined face. His hair was mostly silver-grey, underlain throughout with the dark, indeterminate shade of his youth, the combination calling to mind the pelt of silverback gorillas, which Lucius had been quite fond of at a young age. The thing about gorillas, though, especially the silverbacks, was that you forget. They amble through the jungle like amicable, almost comical, aging patriarchs having a stretch and scratch and you forget that they can more than easily, _thoughtlessly_, crush a man with a wave of their hands and would, just as happily, crunch through him —bones and all— except they generally chose not to.

"Her Imperial Majesty invites the gentlemen of Sanq Kingdom to tea," he said meekly, striking all colour from the slightly horrified and confused faces of the Deutsche ministers. Receiving the Sanqere herself? Has she no care for diplomatic protocol? What is she thinking! Hadn't she showed made her disinterest clear? _Does she know?_ Then slowly, the outrage.

How dare she torment and defy them at every turn! To decide there are more important things for a Kaiser to do than entertain her guests (such as perfecting her trick shot, which was also, coincidentally, far more interesting than taking notice of her ministers; come to mention, aren't the Sanqere really _their_ guests because she cannot possibly imagine what she could have been thinking inviting a troupe of clowns to stay with her at Schloss Charlottenburg, she didn't even like clowns. By the way, when do they think they'll be taking their clowns home? Only, the round one was putting quite a dent in her wine cellar and she would rather like to have her Museum of Tasteless Art back at some point), then sweep in as they tried to explain and assign blame for the failure of the suit, and make complete fools of them by inviting the Sanqere to tea, of all things! How could she show them up like that? Insolent child!

"That's good, isn't it?" Lucius prodded the dark silence hopefully, showing an innocent optimism that Vice Minister Smythe could not resist groaning, very softly, at.

The message was clear but lacked real context. So Catherina Vera-Stella was capable of making hospitality arrangements independent of her ministers, but was it a show of her wish to meet the Sanqere despite her ministers' objections or a tyrannical show of her inconstancy? Or perhaps she simply enjoyed making her people sweat and foolishly played them at the expense of international diplomacy. She certainly wouldn't be the first idiot to do so.

Chief Minister Branos snorted and inflated himself to his full height and girth. Puffed-up indignation was his default mode for when he didn't know if he should be pleased or blabbering. It was good news, here was chance to put things back on track. For all the King's glaring faults, Branos had no doubt that Byron was perfectly capable of charming his way into any woman's heart, given an opportunity to meet. Tea means their plans have not yet been dashed to naught, that the girl, indolent enough to match his own burdensome master, had not yet realised her danger... Surely? The looks on his Deutsche counterparts' faces worried him. They were the stricken faces of men fearing of having their likenesses moved up in the empress' macabre gallery of ministers. Yellow-bellied sausage-eaters. Luckily, he was not one of them. Still, he would be much more at ease if he hadn't been the known face of conspiracy to them, damn that Trenton!

"_What is the meaning of this intrusion?_*" One of the other minister growled at the man in the door. Beyond the gates of Schloss Charlottenburg, all have heard of those rosy-brown coats, that vivid colour of urban myth and fear, men and women who dyed their coats themselves in the blood of the Kaiser's enemies and skulked unknown through the ranks in her service, whose ways are quick, painful, and merciless. But here within the palace walls, the truth was known. The legendary _Blutigesgarde_ was little more than waifs and strays, playmates and servants Friedrich XI's daughter collects from her less privileged days and a sign of her girlish weaknesses rather than strength. There is neither fear nor respect for the young woman unable to put down her toys, so why should there be either for the toys?

"It means the lady is waiting, of course," a large Sanqere blond rose from the far end of the couch in a series of long, languid stretches. No, he hadn't been nodding off. In fact, he'd been quite brazenly asleep. Byron Peaecraft allowed himself a hearty lion's yawn, to the horror of his men, and strode into the hallway before anyone else had the presence of mind to stand up. "Well? What are we hanging around for?" he beamed, clapping the messenger amicably on the shoulder. "Lead on, Mcduff!"

Lucius Darlian followed the procession down to tea with an expression that suggested he was going to his own funeral. Some men went to their deaths in dignity, others kicking and screaming, still others on their knees. Going to one's own funeral, however, tended largely to be filled with morbid fascination and some kind of disbelief. Occasionally, the stout-hearted enough who have lived satisfactorily to themselves approached it with pride. This was not the case with Lucius, who hadn't particularly lived any kind of life at all. This was also because most of his brain hadn't quite caught up with what his face was doing yet.

There was very small, calm, smile plastered on the somewhat vacant face of Lister Smythe, the Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs. Smythe was a Murphy, the sort of man who saw a million, or what might as well be so, things that were wrong or could go wrong at any given moment, resulting in an overall sour and rather prune-like disposition that was soothing in its consistency. Calm meant there was nothing left for Smythe to worry about, that what followed could not possibly present itself with scenarios that were any worst, accidental or otherwise, which could be very worrying indeed.

They marched through the length of the rather substantial palace under curious eyes. Here and there, someone would avert their gaze and flee behind the nearest door or bend unnecessarily hard over their neglected tasks. The Kaiser's messenger took no notice. At least, no-one in the modest procession thought he did.

Something niggled in the back of Lucius' mind, lodged sharply between his eyes and his brain. Pay attention, it said, no, demanded. It might have helped if it'd also thought to be more direct about what Lucius should have been paying attention to. Instead, he was allowed to stray over a number of things and settle on admiring the crisp blue weather framed beyond the palace windows. It was a classic Earl Grey with watercress and cucumber sandwiches sort of day.

Such civilities were unheard of at Skagen Castle, which Byron run like a glorified bachelor's pad with heavy greasy meals and copious amounts of ale and artificial soda drinks. Salads, provided they were never put in front of the King, presented the only alternative to Byron's preferred diet of things slathered in refried potato bits, curds and gravy and when the ladies of his Court had tea with all its many sophistications, it was usually at their own estates. Perhaps it would be nice to move up to Schloss Charlottenburg, he thought, then chided himself for presuming. Of course Byron would be expected to leave his steading for Deutscheland, if not outright assimilate it into the vast eastern Empire, but that was neither assurance nor justification that he would take Lucius with him; and despite every protest and reluctance he'd shown over coming here in the first place, Lucius felt… dejected. In this light, he might even have called the brazen King friend and been sad to see his loss.

Then Byron stopped to flirt shamelessly with a blushing chambermaid and the sentiment passed.

**.**

There were rumours of course, there are always rumours, and nothing flushes them out into the open like a good walk of doom. Not that the Sanqere were doomed yet, though anyone who thought to take any notice of these things knew they were. No-one came away from tea with the Kaiser unscathed, if they did come away at all. It was almost a sort of code.

She was the pale model of some rose confectionary, decked out in layers of pink silk, satin and velvet. Her hair was half-coifed in an ash blonde crown set with a creamy Memorium rose corsage then left to caress her jaw in soft sensual curls under an incredible harlequin half-mask. It split its colours along the line of her proud nose, polished ebony chased in silver ferns and black diamonds to the left, and a gold edged lattice of scarlet jasper diamonds in subtly carrying hues on the other. The crest of the mask peaked through her hair in a stylised iris bearing a deep red gem that blazed under the sun with darkest fire.

The lips framed under this entrancing display were delicate and moist and modestly dressed in pearly pink gloss and a natural air of kindness. In contrast, her attendants seemed more like jailors than faithful guards.

Three stood watch along the garden path and two more around the three-foot hedge circling the sundial dais at the end of it, whom their guide drifted away to join. A rustic white iron bistro set perched next to the ancient mechanical curiosity on the wide stone-paved platform, where a sixth hovered stiffly over her Imperial Majesty's shoulder with a silver tray of dainty meringue biscuits served on perfect fresh petals from the Rose Labyrinth not twenty feet behind her.

They were a sombre lot, grimly uniformed in sensible tan breeches with broken-in boots and crimson brown coats, and not an expression between them. Every face was alert but devoid of expression, like porcelain dolls. Only the lovely empress' showed any signs of life, reading wistfully from a slim volume of pastoral poetry. Occasionally, she would lift a translucent fluted rim cup to her lips and take a small sip. Even Smythe, dour and ever vigilant of plots and flaws, was genuinely charmed.

But the Deutsche ministers huddled and grumbled uneasily. "_Scheiße_," he heard one swear, "_it's the Red Death,_*" "_no, not the rose walk, f-._*" "_That's just stories, get a grip_,*" "_sure, will you deny that no-one's ever walked out of the Rose Labyrinth with her?_*" and saw them shuffle closer together looking just a shade haunted.

Lucius would have understood what they meant with more poignancy, but he had not been paying particular attention. Nonetheless, some of the apprehensions invaded his usual trusting haze.

The young woman on the dais greeted them with a slight tilt of her head. "_They say the Sanqere like roses,_*" she said, eyes twinkling behind the silver, gold, black and red cage of her face, "_and little darling girls too pretty to be anything but Kaiserin._*"

Byron's bodyguards stiffened. Branos grew bright red as this was translated and Smythe winced with the look of the man who knew it was coming and had hoped secretly that it wouldn't. Lucius did not seem to notice, though his lips were pressed in a tight, perplexed line. A wry smile plucked at the corner of Byron's wolfish mouth.

"Clearly, madam, I was mistaken. How can the beauty of a mere seed compare to that of a full bloom?" he replied as his Chief Minister turned on his Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs and demanded in hissing whispers to know what that was all about while the latter tugged fruitlessly on Bryon's loose shirttail, trying to get him to bow.

Lucius noted all this through impassive eyes, feeling the tension hum in his ears. Something was wrong, just beyond his mental reach. Something here did not make sense.

"_Please, Byron Peacecraft,_*" she was smiling, "_have a seat_.*"

Byron stepped onto the platform without hesitation, and things started to sink in.

Lucius Darlian, Assistant Librarian at Skagen Castle, swept forward and lodged his elbow against his silly King as the man started to pull out a chair. "_Nein_," he declared grimly in broken but proud German, "_we will wait for her Imperial Majesty_.*" This was important. In all the tales told outside these gates, everyone who has failed in moral etiquette has died. The king on Winter's feast day, the robber on the glen, the fat merchants and the braggarts… The older Courts are built on spite, where any slight to the crown is an executionable civil offence. And for all the disgruntled murmurings about Catherina Vera-Stella, not one dared call her _uncivilised_.

Look at Sanq's ministers; they call their king many names, some of which he deserves, but never the ones that made them truly afraid. He was never 'berserk', she was never 'treacherous'. There were many ex-ministers in the tall gallery connecting the palace foyer to its administrative centres. _Blutigesgarde_ was what the _other_ countries called them. She was never 'bloody'.

The young woman held his eyes firmly. The air froze against his skin. Behind him, Byron chuckled. He could feel the silly grin and twinkling eyes bore through the back of his neck. Only anger, a deep, stony rage at things he did not understand and things that did not have to be so, kept the burning embarrassment from reaching his face. The world fell away in a heart-stopping moment, until it was just him and her.

"And if you, too, are mistaken?" she asked gently in hardly accented English.

"I'm not," Lucius replied flatly, dropping his voice to a harsh low growl. "Black and red is the colour of the Riders, but not their Lady. _Der Columbina_ is always silver and gold."

Then _she_ grinned, and the spell was broken.

"_What an amusing dog you have, Byron Peacecraft_,*" she rose nimbly with a pretty toss of her head and reached past him to take Byron's hands. "_Come, take a walk with me under the roses,_*" her silvery voice gay and insisting. The voluptuous pink and red blossoms in her background suddenly took on a sinister tone. Lucius plunged his fingers blindly into Byron's arm, too terrified of the rose-clad Hellequin to look away.

"Not the roses, roses are carnivorous," he blathered urgently as the king mildly pried his grip away. _How do hers grow so well? What is she feeding her roses?_

"I'll be fine, old boy," Byron had the gall to laugh.

"Don't _go_, Byron," something in him screamed and pled despite the calm with which the words were actually delivered.

There were knives in the guardsmen's impassive faces. Were they hers or for her? It's the stories, it's all in the stories. _They're all wrong 'cos they're not real stories, you see? They're real! _The inner voice raged on hysterically. He grimaced, partly from the senseless screeching in his head, partly for Byron's foolhardiness, and partly because Smythe has now succeeded in twisting his arm around his back in what the Vice Minister thought was a palliative subduing hold.

"What's the matter with you, boy?" he snarled nose to nose with him, but Lucius' eyes were elsewhere, following the daft fool who was disappearing into an inbred empress' rosebush maze with that stupid nonchalant grin on his face, suddenly genuinely afraid he may never see that lout again.

**…**

**"...*"**: stuff said in German.

**A/N: **I've sometimes pondered the possibilities of Pagan being King Peacecraft in "disguise", except for the flashback scenes where Pagan duelled young Milliard (where did all his curls _go_?) and recounting his escape from the castle with baby Relena. Things could be quite tragically interesting if I can get all that squared away, don't you think?


	11. XI : Fortitudo

**Ophiuchus Side-Stories:  
A.C. 163**

**.:XI:.**

It did not seem the least bit strange to Byron Peacecraft III when his rose-costumed guide dropped a simple servant's curtsey then turned a corner into the heart of the garden maze and disappeared.

It did not seem strange to him that Lucius had been scared to see him go. He had to admit it was rather cruel of him to allow the other man to go through that, especially since he was considered his oldest and best-est friend, as much as Lucius himself would disagree; the thing about friendship is, it's not what the other person thinks of you, it's how you feel about them.

So it did not seem at all strange to him to find himself, a few moments after, suddenly sharing the narrow path with someone who had not been there mere seconds ago. This was, after all, an ancient palace. A few secrets were only to be expected.

She was tall, almost as tall as him, and held herself with the balanced gauntness of one well-seasoned in practical combat unlike, say, the courtly arts of arms (which is all prancing about in padded suits waving things with rubber tips so no-one really gets hurt… or hit, for that matter). Her mask dangled from exquisitely tooled fingertips, torn off her face in a last spur-of-the-moment decision against it, a delicate plain thing that would have covered her from hairline to nose-tip and stretched across her eyes from cheek to cheek with an interesting golden sheen that at times, turned just so, would seem to vanish into thin air.

The Sanqere King bowed graciously, a wary smile escaping his lips.

"Ah, Madam Kaiser. I had wondered which of the Court flowers you would be, but now I see I should have been looking for a Thorn."

The woman —the same guardswoman he'd met in the bower with the ladies-in-waiting and the little princess on his first day, right down to those sensible shiny boots except for the columbina and the rapier carried casually in one hand— unfolded that arm to return a mock salute and did not ask how he knew.

"I shall take that as a compliment, _Herr_ Peacecraft," she smirked with thin, militant, lips. "You have enjoyed your stay?"

"You have many interesting customs," he said, admiring her stony eyes. They were sharp and grey, like flint.

"So, you must have more German than your men think." She seemed to find some amusement in that. "You are aware the reputation of this place?"

"The most luscious rose garden in the world," he gestured at the lascivious red and black heads blooming blindly around them, "who would want to leave?"

The antique topiary puzzle at the bottom of the palace gardens was mentioned only in the most fervent whispers of terrified Deutscheland officials summoned to its edge, as though not speaking of it made it less true: no-one entering the Rose Labyrinth with Friedrich XI's daughter has ever come back out. _Nothing grows roses like murdered bones._

"Yes, it is true, the roses like the company."

They did not know when it began, it was only after they realised the manner of monster they had installed in her father' place that they'd started to notice these things. Sometimes, when she was feeling especially sadistic, they would pass through the Patriots' Gallery on their way to the gardens and find their portraits already 'promoted'. No-one spoke of that, of course, having never came back to tell of it; and if the servants knew, they had their own reasons for holding their tongues.

Byron's gaze flickered between hers and the uncapped tip of her blade hovering restlessly over the trodden dirt. It didn't catch the light so much as pierce it through the heart and wore it like a feathered hat.

"You haven't got a spare, have you?" he asked lightly. "If you'd said, I would have brought mine."

She spared him a withering look. "_Please_. Does the wolf give the rabbit a knife before she eats him?"

"I don't think you mean to kill me, madam," he grinned after a brief pause, "or I'd be dead already."

It was a roguish, wolfish grin that refused to take things at any pace and in any way but its own. There was a similar glint in the depths of her eyes.

"_Doch!_" She shrugged with much subjection, "but Marlyne insists I speak with you first, so we do."

"Marlyne… the girl in the dress?"

"_Ja._ She tends my affairs," was the solemn reply. "If I do not mind her, it is cold tea and soggy socks for weeks."

Despite all the matchmakers' promises, Catherina Vera-Stella was not what an honest man would call pretty. The competent air of her carriage elevated her to 'striking', but no further. Her lines were clean and severe, the set of her jaw disagreeably strong, the line of her brow, though high, also heavy. No, she was no beauty. All the same, it was not unusual to be mesmerised.

Byron, on the other hand, _was_ handsome; and regally so. One need only chip away the caked-on grime of a rakish thug to see the details of a face that in much older, simpler times would have been recognised indisputably as The King, if not at least a god. It was a face rich in gravitas, the kind that could launch a thousand ships and conqueror entire continents in but a glance.

Friedrich XI had been a man like that. Of course, he had had the gravity of a hundred thousand men and three hundred thousand dead behind him, too.

Byron Peacecraft was a resilient warrior, an ambitious conqueror (of women, but they assured her that his enthusiasm would be channelled quickly into proper empire expansion once he was wed), and everything the empire needed, her ministers insisted. Dignity! Respect! (And, oh yes, everything they needed to be rid of her.) Just like her father, they'd purred, for what little princess cast out of her daddy's sight would not crumble at the chance to win back his love?

But Catherina's Deutscheland had no need of kings and conquerors. It needed schools, and spaceports, and commerce, and internet, things to bring it into the After Colony age, not war games and masquerades and cabals of fine lords and ladies flitting about their grand halls in trivial pursuits —although there was certainly room for hot tea and dry socks— She did not need her father's love, she had his death to keep that wound dressed.

The Kaiser raised her sword.

"You have bought a bad bargain, Sanqere. If we were to wed you will lose your kingdom and I will lose autonomy. If we do not, the empire will lose face and there will be war and blood. None of these are acceptable."

"And if we leave things as they are, neither here nor there?" He drawled comfortably, as if she were not pointing a weapon to his heart.

Cloud shadows flitted across her face. Her eyes flashed, fierce gimlet stars against a backdrop of glistening, vampiric, roses. "Neither of our diligent cabinets will allow it to last, sadly." He knew this to be the truth.

"So you want me to stay here, under your roses, as it were."

"Why not?" There was not a shred of malice in her voice, only cool steel, even and practical. "Thus, Deutscheland's pride is saved, your kingdom is unforfeit, and I shall have some peace for a little while because when you do not return, those palace rats will not be so bold to cross me again until they forget."

"Right," the King of Sanq stuck his hands in his pockets and cocked his head thoughtfully to one side, "Because Sanq Kingdom is an inconsequential country province and the world's hardly going to give a toss whether I live or die; and then you'd only have to say that I tried to kill you to turn everyone on both our sides into traitors and no-one can argue with the execution of traitors, not to mention a public execution or two will even give you some clout around these parts."

Her mouth twisted grimly in a morbid smile that does not reach anywhere else. "You see my position—" she started to say, but Byron went on—

"No, maybe not so far as public." The expression with which he answered hers was pleasant, and positively menacing.

"You look just like your father," he said shrewdly, "that's why you wear the masks, so people won't have to look at you and see Friedrich the Butcher. It wouldn't do to remind them of that, would it? Sanq may be small and insignificant, but we are loud and boisterous, and too stupid to know when to keep our mouths shut. What will your people think when mine scream murder from every hill?"

"It matters little what they think." She shrugged with her off shoulder. It was the puffed-up gentry and politicians that gave her grief, not the general public. Besides, it wasn't the people that got him in the end, was it.

"Hah! Why all the fairytales then?" He strode towards her, cocksure and triumphant, though neither of them knew what it was he thought he was triumphant over. "Why sneak them stories to make them think of you kindly? Why explain anything if it doesn't matter?"

The rapier arched slightly like an animal bracing itself as it parted the silk on his breast and pressed cold into his skin. A warm dampness followed, unheeded by all eyes grey and blue.

Catherina's arm dropped. Not the defeated slump of a heavy conscience but a smooth strategic temporary withdrawal in favour of new considerations; in this instance, whether Byron'd been dropped on the head as a child.

"What the hell are you talking about?"

There was an awkward lull in the world. Then, because he couldn't help it, Byron laughed.

**…**

**A/N:** this one's winding down now, i think.


	12. XII : Suspensus

**.:XII:.**

Lucius knew something was wrong before letting go of Byron's hand and he regretted it even more now, all alone in the gaudy Deutsche palace guestroom.

The tea party had been cleared away as soon as the empress (no, her doppelganger, Lucius insisted) disappeared with her Sanqere suitor, leaving his delegation to mill, bewildered and ignored, and pick their own sheepish way back to their rooms.

The Chief Minister had been livid at first. How dare they be treated this way! Were they not honoured guests of the Empire? Until the unusually relaxed Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs pointed out that No, they were not. This suit was negotiated and arranged by her cabinet, as much as they themselves were responsible for Sanq's part in it and not their King. From a certain point of view, they could even be thought of as gatecrashers. Clearly, with the absence of their master, the members of his retinue are no longer of any consequence.

Lucius was sure they were being used as pawns in some sick Deutsche game. On the bright side, since no-one appears to know what more to do with them, there was a good chance that they hadn't decided what to do about Byron either. "So if there's ever some good to come out of your womanizing skills, this might be it," Lucius mumbled darkly.

**.**

There was an awkward lull in the world, under the Kaiser's roses. Then, because he couldn't help it, Byron laughed.

People, particularly those with things to lose and gain, spread stories about themselves all the time. Different tales for different ends, whether it is to warn, persuade, or obfuscate. It is the most common weapon wielded in any war of hearts and minds. It goes beyond simple lies and appearances and taps into the most secret, primal, sentiments.

Tell a tale of a midnight slasher and all of a sudden, every gaunt man met on a badly lit curb at the stroke of twelve is a potential murder. Spread the woes of a reluctant criminal and before you know, the world is a little kinder, and a little more vulnerable to crimes that might be thusly excused. Feed them fictions of a layabout King then watch them roll with it without further verification, convinced of his ineffectuality but unable to explain why.

Stories, he holds, are the heart and soul of things, the lies, hopes, dreams, truths, everything lurking beneath the surface of the common human existence. Fairytales especially are anthologies of all the greatest things those who tell them yearn for and want to believe— Naturally, this philosophy was beyond absurd to a pragmatist such as Catherina Vera-Stella Kaiser von Deutschland.

"What the hell are you talking about?"

The plainly dressed swordswoman scowled with just a hint of confusion and raised her weapon again, this time levelling its sharpened point at his naked throat. He'd put a chink in her armour with his erratic behaviour and frustration seeped through it, annoying her even further.

And he laughed, because it was comically ironic to him that the woman rising at the heart of her capital's rich (and bloody) new mythology was so truthfully unaware and baffled by it, and because somehow, with this realisation, it seemed suddenly obvious that she was intended to be his friend and not an enemy.

"I was wrong," he smiled guilelessly, genuinely. "There is no scam; well, not from you, anyway. You don't even play!"

"Your men are right," she said humourlessly, "you are insane."

**.**

It had been hours. Morbid, agonising hours.

Then, just as he thought he might throw himself out of a window from the stress of waiting, a palace steward liveried in official colours appeared and led him down to dinner.

Until now, all their meals had been brought to their rooms.

Dinner at Schloss Charlottenburg was served in the grand Audience Hall, where all other proceedings of the Empire were held, in front of the Imperial throne. Solid oak tables oiled and polished to a fine whiskey glow and inlaid with intricate panes of hand-carved marble were brought in night after night from a discreet side chamber by a small army of meticulous footmen and laid in two arched rows pointed towards the throne, with forty-eight matching stools arranged on both sides of the central crests and long benches on the ends. The importance attached to the seats is determined by its proximity to the throne, which stood on a half-moon dais eighteen, possibly twenty, feet wide and four steps high. A smaller, silver, table is assigned to the centre place on the first step, from which the Kaiser was served by two peripubescent boys, lotteried children of her Court.

Catherina Vera-Stella (or whoever that may really be on the throne, Lucius could not be sure) ate off a silver lap tray, although most evenings she did little more than pick at the crumbs. It was all very strange, Lucius realised when he thought about it afterwards, and regretted missing the opportunity to ask _why_.

Tonight she wore emerald so deep it was almost black adorned with ebony cameos strung on delicate gold chains and gathered at the waist with a cascade of lace dyed in Indian ink, her hair caught and coifed in luxurious waves to show off her alabaster back. A pair of writhing thorn-creatures sculpted from black leather and broken shards of harsh, glittering, black crystals, perched on the high shelves of her grim cheekbones, an inspired work of art like the rest of her mask collection, but Lucius no longer had the heart to appreciate such things.

**.**

"So what's with the masks?"

"It's a hobby," she half-lied.

The greatest advantage of being raised in disgrace was anonymity. Whereas this was a far-off fantasy for those born into the spotlight of Royal Blood and a veritable nightmare for most teens, Catherina realised the tactical value of it very quickly in her youth and strove ever since to preserve it. It always helps when one's enemies are unable to recognise them readily, not to mention all the clandestine fun of spying on (and assassinating) your own Court and passing yourself off as just another nondescript member of staff.

"Quite a convenient one, I bet," he grinned. Of all the men in the world who would respond to a rapier at his throat by shoving his hands in his pockets and making flirtatious small talk, Byron was one of the foolhardiest. "Then all the stuff about daddy issues…?"

"Sorry," she smirked. "Men prefer that in a woman, yes? But I would never have got anything done if I am the sort to be bothered by what I kill."

This admission should appal him. He should at least be scandalized by the callous way she reduced the burden of ending a life, of patricide, to a trivial distraction. But Byron Peacecraft the Third, being the black sheep that he was, fell just a little in love. He had always admired a woman who did her own dirty work… even if she does it masked.

**.**

Seating arrangements on the lower benches were not unlike the children's game of musical chairs. Attendees unimportant enough to have places assigned to them scrambled to squeeze into whatever opening available and many spend their entire meals jostling for room and inching towards the top. Rumour was the new Kaiser enjoyed this part of the day as a sport, rather than a meal.

Lucius was surprised when, instead of being left to fend for himself as was the accepted norm, his guide led him to a spot near the centre of the hall.

"What's going on?" Sanq's Chief Minister Branos wrung his hands manically under the table as Lucius sat down across from him. "Have you seen His Majesty?"

"How did you not?" Lucius muttered sourly, because there was the man in question, boisterous and hale, plying drinks at the foot of the Kaiser's table with the Deutsche vipers. To Lucius' eye, King Byron, whom he had fretted himself to the quick and even shed a few secret tears for thinking he'd surely been turned into rosefeed, stuck out like a sore thumb.

"In about twenty minutes, he will either start a fight or take off his shirt and sing something that starts a fight," he moaned from years of experience with the Byron Peacecraft and alcohol, "and if we're lucky, it won't be a song about sex."

Branos cringed and didn't bother reprimanding Lucius' ignoble tone. His knuckles were a pasty white against his swollen purple fingers, though he did not seem to notice. Elsewhere in the room, there was a Deutsche man or two suffering similar symptoms.

"Smythe!" He hissed as the Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs joined them, "What have you heard? Are they accepting our suit? _What's going on?_"

And nothing.

The Sanqere King did not return to the guest quarters that night.

**.**

"We are both victims of our legacies, I think," he said.

Her laugh was a harsh, sharp bark. "Do I look like a victim, _Herr_ Peacecraft?"

"No," he laughed, "I guess not. But let me help you with your enemies all the same, and in return, maybe you can help me out with mine. I am not your enemy, Madam Kaiser. In fact, I would very much like to be your friend."

"How convenient," she replied, sword and eyes and teeth flashing. "It is a terrible thing to be my friend."

**.**

Lucius and the ministers woke a little after seven the next morning, amidst the enormous racket Byron made digging through their things.

"Look lively, men! Get up, get dressed," he demanded cheerfully, "Isn't this what we're here for?"

On the fifth day of their arrival, the Kaiser of Deutschland decided to grant the Sanq delegation an audience.

A familiar face, Weridge of the rusty coated _Blutigesgarde_, was dispatched to herd them through the echoing corridors, under ominous portraits of traitors and dissidents and into the Audience Hall.

It seemed larger in the daylight, a trick of the sun streaming in through the domed glass ceiling: another modern update to the original building. Tinted panes cast beautiful coloured shadows across the freshly waxed floors, lending the space its cathedral feel, while lavish panels carved from ivory and amber lined the walls, depicting endless gruesome, bloodless, battles; and presiding over it all, behind an unwieldy Imperial Cabinet largely inherited from her father, was Her Imperial Majesty, Catherina Vera Stella Kaiser von Deutschland.

She is resplendent today in a silver-grey satin dress that wrapped around her from neck to hip over a bodice of delicate pearlescent scales then fell away into a full floor-length skirt and small round train; elegant and simple, a stark contrast to the baroque fantasy that was the traditional seat of the Deutschland Kaisers. Her arms were bare and unadorned. Her face was a lake cold and impassive, a smooth, liquid-shined veneer across all the features that make her human, save the gold-dusted lips. A faint frost pattern flowed around its edges playfully, a clever trick of liquid crystal engineering. Lucius fidgeted, suddenly reminded of the fading pen stains on his shirt tails and tugged self-consciously on the offending area in hopes of hiding it in his hands.

Not that he needed have bothered, since all eyes were fixed on the man at the head of their little procession, a broad and imposing figure even in the current foppish trend of dramatically flared sleeves filled with a cornucopia of frills and the resurgence of a matching ruffed bib.

Byron, whether by coincidence or some piqued design, wore a coat the blackened red of heart's blood similar to but several shades darker than the russet uniforms of the Kaiser's personal guard and trimmed with layers of creamy fluted silk, over a festive red shirt.

The Monarchs of the Sanq Kingdom did not believe in crowns, electing to invest in a thick platinum armlet worn around their left arms as their symbol of sovereignty instead. Partly, it was sometimes speculated, for ease of transaction should ever the need for a quick liquidation should arise. It is a utilitarian thing, heavy and dull, cast in a solid ring around a dim grey-blue diamond the size of a dove's egg and a half dozen small, uncut stones in shades of blue and black. The jewel might have been worth something once, with a better cut and polish. Unfortunately, the fashion for fancy coloured diamonds had died quite some time ago, taking the value of such pieces with it. And yet, even so, three generations of Peacecrafts have defended it with pride and reverence. Would Byron be able to give it up? Lucius wondered. Should he?

It was the sort of question Chief Ministers were meant to raise, but Branos was too busy feeling… actually, what was he doing? Lucius' eyes snapped suddenly to the rotund man sweating uncomfortably a half-step behind Vice Minister Smythe when he should have stood beside his king.

Branos was good at announcing his presence, which he has done consistently throughout their stay in the empress' perilous house. He had made himself heard at every turn, constantly complaining, cajoling, demanding; but his strides shortened and slowed as soon as they'd entered the Empress' presence and his chest had started to cave. Was he… afraid? Now that Lucius thought about it, the man only seemed to shut up when it came to furthering the delegation's agenda with the Deutsche, as if reluctant to get involved. That can't be right. This whole expedition was his baby, wasn't it? Whose idea was the match anyway?

The world seemed to spin and all Lucius could think was going back home to his library and the uncomplicated peace and routine of his work, away from the dazzling lights and fancy dress, from ministers and marriages and the childish madness of bachelor kings and empresses who insist on being emperor.

A mild, reed-like man, some sort of official matchmaker, heralded them before the assembly, sneaking nervous glances at his friends amongst the ministers. It had been sheer fluke that they'd come across someone, anyone, bold or reckless enough to consider their difficult mistress for a bride. Imperial traditions expect her to be wed before age twenty-three, or it would be his head. There will be many large and joyful favours to be repaid, though it was still a little early to be optimistic. He still had to sell her on _Byron Peacecraft the Third, King of Sanq, accomplished sportsman, gentleman of valour and, uhh… "consummate" connoisseur…_?

He didn't get very far when the young king stepped in himself. "Madam Kaiser," he said, then, to the shock and consternation of all, "_I had never been given cause to put much thought to your grand Empire or illustrious self. In these past days, however, I have come to feel deeply for your radiance and magnificence. I come before you now, therefore, as one sovereign to another, with a gift_—*" and before he could be stopped, Byron grabbed two men at apparent random and hauled them behind him as he climbed up the Imperial dais—

"_Madam, I present to you, these two traitors to your sovereignty. You will find that they thought to stab you in the back through me and in the process, engineer both our dooms_.*"

"_Unhand me_*!" "_This is outrageous_*!" The men roared in protest. Branos rocked on the balls of his feet, moments from fainting, as a murmur rose around the room. Even Smythe looked a little green around the gills.

Surprisingly, no-one moved. There was a chaotic rush of voices, disbelief, condemnation, you-never-would-have-thought-s, but nothing loud, and nothing that was likely to draw attention to any one individual in particular. Nobody leapt forward to cry foul on Byron. Nobody uttered a peep to the shimmery empress. This abnormality, more than anything, chilled the foreign delegation.

Byron kept his prisoners easily pinned on either side of him, barely six feet from his fiancée-to be. He was silent as she took a sharp breath and discreetly bit the inside of her lip. Her knuckles were pale and quivered from the effort of keeping them from her mouth. Her eyes were narrowed behind the beautiful mask, quietly hurling bloody murder at him for his dramatic display. He knew she knew what was going on. He knew she was reluctant to unravel their tangled web, _for reasons of prudency and strategy_, she hastened to add. It certainly was not cowardice, no! Not her, Friedrich Eleventh's Daughter!

She shifted in her seat, willing the rage to dissipate as she stretched her hands out to grasp the armrests of the ancient baroque throne and tipped her head serenely to one side.

"_Marlyne, is this true_*?" She asked lightly, cruelly, in her flippancy, as if it were a mere triviality.

"_Yes, ma'am. We have proof_*."

"_So_*," the empress leaned down and fixed the men with a piercing blue stare. "_And what, I wonder, is the penalty for that_*?"

Seamlessly, in mere heartbeats, a gunshot rang out across the length and width of the grand hall, followed closely by another. The two men crumbled, their faces twisted in guilt and disbelief. Lucius hadn't even seen the tall _Blutigesgarde_ woman beside the throne move.

"Death, Imperial Majesty," she said dispassionately in a voice that did not carry past the dais, her flintlock eyes fixed firmly down the barrel of her gun still, on Byron Peacecraft III, just as his had been fixed on her the moment he'd entered the room and not the woman on the throne.

**.**

"Marry me, Catherina Vera-Stella," he shrugged, all matter-of-fact, devoid of any mischief or romance. "We can make it work, think of the possibilities. Think of what we could accomplish between the two of us, together, against the world and both our enemies."

For the two rotten apples they had hoped would destroy each other for them to band together and turn on them? She had to admit, the irony would be fantastic.

"What good is that to me?" she asked instead, unfazed.

The Deutschland Empire is a rich prize, particularly for men such as he, and she did not fault him for it. But what could he do for her that she has not already accomplished by herself?

"I have no designs on your empire, Madam," he seemed impatient now, like a boy waiting for his mates to catch up to the brilliance of his latest scheme. "In fact, let's make things interesting. A wager! I bet I can make you fall in love with me before we wed.

"And when I do," not 'if' but 'when', she noted wryly, "when I do, you must give up everything to do with your petty empire. Then you'll see how little it means to me!"

"And if you fail?" Her eyebrows arched in villainous ways, almost with a life of its own. "What is there Sanq offers that I could possibly want?"

**.**

Lucius gave in to the urge to be sick. Mercifully, he was not important enough to warrant any attention from anyone except a sympathetic Weridge, who led him gently to a spittoon and quietly handed him a stack of napkins.

"Thank you, _Herr_ Peacecraft," the empress smiled. It was an innocent smile, _but oh-so-bloody_. "But now you have left my administration two men short. Do all your gifts end this way?"

Byron bowed humbly, with flourish, almost mockingly.

"I am sorry to have left you at an inconvenience, Madam," he countered without hesitation, waving his hand broadly behind him, over his entourage. "Allow me to put my own men in your service. They are hard workers and generally competent, though I am sure they are but dullard drones compared to the men of Deutschland. You need only command them and put them to whatever task you see fit."

"Sire?" The Sanqere Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs ventured a dazed step forward.

"Lord Branos especially, has had several years serving us as Chief Minister," his King continued brightly, "I am confident he will make a smooth transition into your cabinet."

He said more, but Lucius was too busy throwing up again to catch it. A moment later, Byron turned with a wicked glint in his eyes and strode back down the dais. "Smythe, you've been promoted. We'll find Trenton a new Vice Minister when we get back. Good news, Branos," he beamed and slapped the pale, sputtering creature heartily on the back, "Her Imperial Majesty has agreed to let me court her. You are now officially the Empire's hostage."

…

**A/N:  
**It may be worth noting that historically, it is thought that he who carries a diamond bound to his left arm shall be victorious, no matter the enemies.  
Also, where does all the time go?


End file.
